It Couldn't be Done
by Xizor159
Summary: As Sasuke looked down on his closest friend, he knew that he couldn't kill him, he knew that it couldn't be done. Just a short little story about Sasuke's feelings for Naruto at the Valley of the End.


**Disclaimer:** Just so I don't get into trouble or something, I do not own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto does. I would think that's fairly obvious though.

A/N: I wrote this in about 10 minutes, so forgive its lack of content. It was more of just a way to keep up my writing ability, but I liked it anyways. I hope you do too.

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What is it that I was supposed to do? Kill him? It couldn't be done. It was impossible. He was and probably still is my closest friend, the only one who really understands me. The only one who can really feel for me if he had to. I couldn't kill him. It just couldn't be done. Just to obtain power, it wasn't right. I wouldn't do that to my closest friend. But, the worst part is, I didn't refrain because he was my closest friend. I refrained because that's what _he _had hoped for. That I'd be just like him.

_Come before me with the same eyes I have now!_

Those words held me back. If I had done that to my closest friend, if I had killed him, I would have been just like the man I've sworn to kill. I would have done what he did. I'd be out to kill myself had I done it. Just to obtain power, it couldn't be done.

As I had fought with him, taken a beating, beaten him back, and watched as his lifeless form descended onto the rock, my pained body staring at him, I remembered the time I'd known him. I mean _really_ known him. It had only been about a year. That was all it was. One year's time. And in that time, he and I became each other's best friend, and he became my equal. I would never have admitted it; he wouldn't have let me live it down. I had an ego to protect; I had pride to look after. And as I looked at his chest slowly rising and falling with each breath he took, I remembered the best year of my life. A year where I felt like I finally had a family again. But whenever I started to find myself becoming close with them, I'd have to back away.

"Don't get too close," I'd think to myself, "they might not be here next time you want to see them. They might not be here tomorrow." I couldn't allow myself to make those kinds of bonds again with the prospect of them being severed so harshly once again. I was paranoid, but wouldn't you, if you had come home from school one day at the age of eight and seen your whole entire family dead, the blood of them and those around them covering the walls, the ground, the bodies? Wouldn't you be just a little afraid of what could happen in the future if you let these kinds of bonds form again?

Yet, as I looked down at his expressionless, bliss face, mouth slightly open and hair wet and clothes torn, I started to feel a burning hatred inside of me. Jealously, jealousy for the fact that he was stronger than me. Jealousy that he could do what I couldn't.

_Capturing him is one of the greatest orders given by our organization_

_He _had said that just a few months ago. It had been a great order for the "Akatsuki" to capture my friend. And at the time, I had tried to kill _that_ man, but I had been crushed down so easily, so effortlessly on his part. And all my friend did was watch, because I had asked him to, though I knew that his heart ached to help me. He was a much better friend to me than I was to him. Maybe he needed me, or needed me to need him. Maybe he was just compassionate. Compassion. That's something I haven't felt in a while. Maybe compassion was what I felt when I looked at his pained expression as he twitched in his unconscious state, the wounds on his body probably throbbing. The hole through his jacked where his lung had been driven through. I'd be in pain, too.

I looked at him one last time before I hobbled away. It was ironic that it started to rain. And as I disappeared through the forest at the other end, I saw my teacher land next to my closest friend, and look down with a very sad look on his face. A look of real pain and sorrow, a look of true regret and emotion. Jealousy spiked within me as I saw the most emotionless man I knew get emotional because of that boy. I looked up at the sky, and thanked it. I thanked it for wetting my face, and for hiding my silent tears within its water. I hadn't cried since that night, the night my bonds had all been severed. Maybe I'd inadvertently caused myself that same pain by doing what I'd done. But it was too late. I had to kill my brother, the one who caused all this pain at all.

And as I walked through the forest, I thought about the moment when I'd refused the greatest weapon I could have obtained up to that point. I recalled refusing to kill my friend and obtain the Mangekyou Sharingan. I thought of my brother, and how it would have been what he wanted.

I remembered how I had chosen not to kill Uzumaki Naruto, my closest friend. It couldn't be done.


End file.
